Album review: Frankie Cosmos

Frankie Cosmos - Vessel (Sub Pop)

BY KERNAN ANDREWS Galway Advertiser, Thu, Apr 05, 2018

Frankie Cosmos (left) and her band. Photo:- Loroto Productions

THE MELODY and manner in which Frankie (aka Greta Kline ) sings the opening line of opening track 'Caramelize', her stretching the words, making them rise and fall, as though on some blissful roller-coaster, should send a frisson of excitement through any true indie-fan.

The song switches between chords broken by pregnant pauses, and sections of full on indie jangle rock, over which Kline muses how she "wants to make a man out of you" in a voice which conversely combines the world weary with the innocent.

So begins an album of 18 songs clocking in at 34 minutes, a musical road movie through the emotional and circumstantial life of a 20-something, ranging from young ambition and romantic adventure ("I want to tour in a hot pink van" ), to intense relationships ("We talked about dreams about things about you" ), to the adolescent's feeling of being out of place ("Matters quite a bit, even when you feel like s**t, being alive" ) via indie jangle, garage-rock, and quirky acoustic, infused with bitter-sweet melodies and joyfully sad guitar hooks.

Yet the most subversive song is also the shortest - the 32 second 'My Phone', where Kline argues that even if her mobile dies, she knows friends and family are never far away. A warning from a millennial that the value of face to face contact should never be under-estimated.

Frankie Cosmos plays the Róisín Dubh on Wednesday August 22 at 8pm. Tickets are €12/10 from www.roisindubh.net; the Ticket Desk at OMG Zhivago, Shop Street; and The Róisín Dubh.